Eighteen-year-old Lawrence Sellers received the Honor Medal from the Boy Scouts of America.
It's given to only a handful of scouts who demonstrate unusual heroism at considerable risk to themselves.
Sellers was selected to receive the award because he protected his girlfriend from bullets during a shooting in a park a little more than a year ago.
Sellers was shot in the leg.
His girlfriend's boot was grazed.
It was the shooting that took his friend Hadiya Pendleton's life.
Sellers insists it was instinct to shield his girlfriend and he doesn't think an award is necessary.
"Doing the right thing, you shouldn't get an award for it, but I am honored to receive it, of course, I just feel like it's just the right thing," he said.
"If he sees something's wrong or someone is about to be harmed, he'll do his best to get them out of harm's way," Lawrence's mother, Tanya Sellers, said.
Lawrence Sellers says he loves children and hopes to become a math teacher one day.
He wants to attend Northern Illinois University.
ABC7 Eyewitness News reporter Paul Meincke emceed the event.
